I haven’t written for a few weeks because I’m trying to find a new dentist. It’s not easy to find a good dentist. This is one of my least favorite things about starting over – making sure I have good dental care.

It’s a list longer than the great wall of China, all the stuff you have to do when you move, especially when you move across the entire continent.

I have spent a total of (and I am not exaggerating) twelve hours at Ikea since we moved to Alexandria. And the thing I can’t figure out is, why did they spend so much money on all those cash register / conveyor belt thingies.

Most the time, the only check out open is the self-check out line. There are maybe 1,208 checkout lines, and maybe .04 employees.

This is especially apparent at Wal-mart. Someone needs to come to grips with the fact that a check out machine with a conveyor belt and its attached aisle full of trashy magazines and high fructose corn syrup would equal the yearly salary of 16 Wal-mart employees. Come on, Sam, just sell six of your unused check out aisles on eBay, and you’d have enough employees to man the remaining check out aisles for nine years. If Wal-mart is indeed the downfall of our society, by then we’ll all be dead anyway. And at least we’ll have a good nine years of making it home in time to watch The Biggest Loser.

I’ve spent more time shopping in these post-move weeks than I did the entirety of 2009. Starting over isn’t really so bad, if you like shopping. But it’s ironic that just when I made it to trophy wife status, I also became a store clerk.

Oregon has really got it going on. I could start over in Oregon any day because even if I have to check myself out at Ikea, I’ll never have to pump my own gas. But for now, I cannot and do not live in Oregon, so the only thing that I do not do for myself is fill my own cavities. That is, if I can find a good dentist.